The present invention relates generally to a lighting fixture, and more particularly to an LED-based lighting fixture.
Over the past several years, the use of high power LEDs in lighting fixtures has increased significantly as device performance increases to a level where general illumination applications become practical. More and more applications such as task lighting and area lighting can be achieved using LEDs as the light source. Their high energy efficiency and small size make LEDs ideal candidates for such lighting fixtures. Traditional lighting luminaires often do not provide for the thermal management required by LED devices. In addition, the fixtures are much larger than necessary due to the historic size of more traditional light sources. Such fixtures do not take advantage of the small size of LED devices.
Luminaires are typically fabricated from new raw metals, typically aluminum, steel or brass. Each new fixture requires additional natural resources to produce the metals, even if, as in the case of aluminum, the metal is recycled. During the course of a year, this results in tons of raw material that must be produced, with the corresponding output of greenhouse gases which is a byproduct of the energy generated to produce the metal stock. The energy requirement for producing new lighting fixtures is a major disadvantage of the present approach. Cost to produce these fixtures is a second disadvantage.